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An "Authentic" Problem in Heidegger's Being and Time

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An AN "AUTHENTIC" PROBLEM IN HEIDEGGER'S BEING AND TIME ROY MARTINEZ Spellman College I THE PROBLEM There is a tension in Heidegger's concept of authenticity. On the one hand, authenticity is described as the correlate of inauthenticity and has the function of "mineness" (Jemeinigkeit) in contrast to the impersonality of the "they" (das Man). On the other, authenticity is prescribed as an ideal. In this paper, I will examine critically the interrelation of the three concepts of conscience, authenticity, and resoluteness. More specifically, I will show that if authenticity is an ideal towards which Dasein should aspire, then care as the "primordial structural totality," as the unity of Dasein, would become questionable. For it would conspire to undermine the a priori status of care. However, the general tenor of Being and Time suggests that authenticity is the meaning of Being, and this thesis is strongly supported by the dimension of care as the matrix of meaning.1 Therefore, since care is Jacques Derrida has called attention to the "anthropological formations in the reading of Sein und Zeit, notably in France." "Ends of Man", in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass(Chicago: 1982), p. 127. This earlier misreading of Being and Time now requires, Derrida insists, a proper rereading of the book in the light of Heidegger's own ontological, not anthropological, intention and method. And Derrida would bring us back to Heidegger's interpretation of Aristotle. Aristotle stated the problem thus: Kai de kai to palai te kai nun kai aei dzeloumenon kai aei aporoumenon, ti to on? (Met. Z 1, 1028 b s sqq.) W. D. Ross translates this passage in the following way: "And indeed the question which was raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz. what being is, is just the question, what is substance?" Richard McKeon, ed. The Basic Works of AristotleiNew York: 1941), p. 783. Of course, Heidegger takes issue with Aristotle's interpretation of being. Vide: Was ist das - die Philosophic? What is Philosophy?Trans]aled by Jean T. Wilde and William Kluback, with the German originaKNew Haven, Conn.: College and University Press, n.d.). Elsewhere in Margins of Philosophy, in the essay "Ousia and Grammd", Derrida shows how this question, both in Aristotle and in Heidegger, is Ausk'Kting, V<»1. XV, No. 1 2 AUSLEGUNG the structure that accounts for the actualization of Dasein's possibilities, thereby rendering its existence meaningful by justifying its choice, I see no reason why authenticity should be further considered as an ideal. II CONSCIENCE Heidegger characterizes conscience as a call, and the character of the call discloses conscience as quadripartite in essence. There is (1) that which calls, (2) that which is called, (3) that about which the call is made, and (4) that to which the call is made. According to Michael Celven, the last element in this fourfold formula is what distinguishes calling from other forms of discourse, "for when I call someone, it is for the sake of initiating action or response."2 He then goes on to point out that each of the four elements of calling is a different way to be a self. Emphasis is placed on way to be a self because it must not be forgotten that the caller is the called calling about itself on behalf of itself. Hence these are all possible ways of existing which are open to Dasein. The self as the called. Imagine an ambitious man who, by sheer industry and a bit of cunning has, in a series of promotions, reached a level in the bureaucracy that is only one step removed from the top. Let us situate him at a party he has dutifully organized in celebration of his penultimate position. Late into the evening he and his guests are sleepy, content, well- entertained, so that they now slouch about, sluggish in consciousness, letting themselves be carried away by the comfort of the present state of things, oblivious to everything else. Then the telephone rings, and our man picks it up only to hear from the other end of the line the unexpected voice of his employer. And what the employer tells him leaves doubts in his own mind about the possibility of ever getting the final promotion. He has been snapped out of his lethargy and thrust, unexpectedly, into an awareness inseparably linked with the problem of time. Hence a proper reading of Being and Time, according to Derrida, requires a parallel reading of Physics IV in particular and Metaphysics in general. Though Derrida's point is commendable, I cannot pursue it any further here. The French misreading of Being and Time to which he alluded, and the corresponding need for a proper rereading of it, is enough to caution us not to commit a similar error. Therefore, in pointing out this conflict in Being and Time I am sending out warning signals against an unnecessary misconstruing of Heidegger's notion of authenticity. 2Michael Celven also argues that in Being and Time authenticity is the meaning of Being. In dealing with this issue with Heidegger, I have considered some pertinent points raised by Celven. M. Celven, Winter, Friendship, and Guilt: the Sources of Self-Inquiry (New York: 1972), p. 183. AN "AUTHENTIC" PROBLEM 3 that rendered the revelry insignificant, reminding him of things more serious and urgent than the soothing occasion of the moment. Except for the external agent in this example, conscience functions almost in the same way. The comfort and carefreeness in which our man allowed himself to languish is characteristic of Dasein in existing as the "they". It should be noted, however, that when, in Being and Time, Heidegger refers to das Man, he does not mean others as opposed to Dasein. If that were the case, then how could it enter into the fourfold essence of conscience? In conscience, after all, the caller is the called. How, then, is the "they" to be understood? The 'they-self is that uncritical and unexamined, vapid mode of existence which keeps our attention directed toward the trivial interests of mere goings-on."3 It is from this luxurious somnolence, in which Dasein is wont to take shelter, apparently happy, being unaware that conscience summons it. The self as the caller. If Dasein is existing in such a way that it hears a call directing it to relinquish its way of being, then clearly there is a tension somewhere, especially since the call comes from within. How must Dasein be such that it calls itself from its own uncritical, somnolent "they- self?" Heidegger answers: The caller is Dasein in its uncanniness: primordial, thrown Being-in- the-world as the "not-at-home" - the bare 'that-it-is' in the "nothing" of the world. The caller is unfamiliar to the everyday theyself; it is something like an alum voice. What could be more alien to the "they", lost in the manifold 'world* of its concern, than the self which has been individualized down to itself in uncanniness and been thrown into the "nothing"?4 In the above quotation Heidegger emphasizes the fact that the caller, considered as a participant in the world, is nothing at all. This is so for the simple reason that the call originates not with Dasein in its "worldly" capacity, i.e., its preoccupation with the instrumental world of things and the depersonalized public world, but in its individualized self. This is the self that is primordial, that is not at home in the world. It is this self, 3Michael Celven, "Authenticity and Guilt", in Heidegger's Existential Analytic, ed. Frederick El!iston(The Hague: 1978), p. 241. 4Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Tr. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson(New York: 1962), p. 321. Hereafter, BT. "Er ist das Dasein in seiner Unheimltchkeit, das urspriingliche geworfene In-der-Welt-sein als Unzuhause, das nackte »Dass« im Nichts der Welt. Der Rufer ist dem alltaglichen Man-selbst unvertraut-so etwas wie eine fremde Stimme. Was kdnnte dem Man, verloren in die besorgte, vielfaltige »Welt«, fremder sein als das in der Unheimltchkeit auf sich vereinzelte, in das Nichts geworfene Selbst?" Sein und Z«'/(Tubingen: 1972), p. 276. Hereafter, SZ. 4 AUSLECUNG uncanny in the world, that does the summoning from the somnolence which renders Dasein dyslogistically oblivious of the ontological cleft which separates its being from the instrumental being of the world. Such oblivion conceals from it the fact that the world of things is not its true home. When this dimension of its existence is disclosed to it, usually in the phenomenon of anxiety (Angst), Dasein feels strangely uncomfortable in the world. Everything seems not to matter, and a feeling of helplessness accompanies this mood. Dasein may be so absorbed in its activities that nothing else matters; but then, it may be so alienated from its activities that even they do not matter. It is then that Dasein feels the ice of loneliness. The overpowering feeling is one of not belonging. The self as that which is called about. Out of the depths of uncanniness, then, Dasein calls the self that is scattered about like any other item in the world. However persistently and fervently the self may pursue its worldly interests, the loneliness and alienation of uncanniness may ruffle the composure that usually results from so much industry and concern. This disjunction within Dasein - the self calling the self - attests to the possible ways that Dasein can exist. Since it is the uncanny self that enables Dasein to "shake off the numbing influence of the they-self',5 it can be said that uncanniness furnishes Dasein with the possible ways of existing; for without uncanniness Dasein would be lost in the "vortex of onticity." Since, however, Dasein is called from its aberration, it is fair to attribute this "summons" or "appeal" to Dasein in its dimension as Care.
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